Purgatory

by Tomás Eloy Martínez

  The waiters glided from one group to the next carrying silver salvers which were picked clean within seconds. Caccace came over to Emilia, prattling incessantly. He explained to her who was who, how the room they were in was modelled on the Second Empire architectural style. He went on and on. The queen too seemed to be suffering from all the hand-kissing, the cigar smoke, the terrible humidity, the stultifying heat. She walked towards one of the windows to get some air, taking off her cape and handing it to one of her ladies-in-waiting.

  The Eel’s wife was sweating profusely. She came over to Emilia, gasping for breath, weighed down by her swollen legs. ‘That’s a beautiful dress you’re wearing,’ she said, ‘but you really should take your dressmaker to task for copying the queen’s dress. He’s French, isn’t he? An Argentinian would have made something more fitting.’ Caccace took a step forward, but just as he was about to kiss her hand and introduce himself, she took a step back. The Eel’s wife stumbled and apologised. ‘Excuse me, how embarrassing, I think I might faint.’ Emilia gestured almost imperceptibly to one of the waiters and together they led her to a chair. Caccace trotted after them, still prattling, still making notes in his little pad. Emilia whispered something in her father’s ear as he passed; Dupuy urgently summoned the Eel’s personal physician, who within ten seconds had unobtrusively taken her pulse and given her some water to drink. He stayed with her until she got her breath back. Everything happened so quickly that nobody seemed to have noticed and perhaps nobody would have known had Caccace not tactlessly reported it in the admiral’s newspaper. Dupuy indignantly phoned the editor and demanded that he immediately fire that childish chimpanzee. Those were his very words; he was proud of his little alliteration.

  The king and queen stayed another two hours at the party without anything else worthy of note happening. Just one trivial episode, which went unnoticed, proved the beginning of a secret scandal. On her way back from the toilet one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting stopped, her back turned, to smooth the creases from her skirt and her blouse, and in doing so exposed a glimpse of her hip as she stepped into the hall. Her skin was very pale and above the iliac crest there was an all too obvious, alluring beauty mark. The lady-in-waiting was pretty and also flirtatious. One of the admiral’s bodyguards glanced over and smiled at her lasciviously. She returned his smile. This was enough for the guard, in a white dress uniform, to approach her and make a proposition. The lady-in-waiting let out a peal of laughter and, as she walked away, nudged him with her arm. She returned to the great hall, not realising the row she had unleashed behind her. Her gentle nudge had caused the guard, who was drinking tomato juice, to stagger. Not wanting to spill juice on his uniform, he jolted himself upright holding the almost full glass and spilling the juice over Emilia’s cape. It looked like a scene from The Three Stooges. The guard was probably a new recruit, a midshipman, perhaps simply a cadet, and was appalled at his clumsiness. The admiral was implacable and this blunder could earn him a week in the brig. He was relieved to see that no one had noticed and, not giving it another thought, picked up the cape and put it in his case. He was intending to send it to a dry-cleaner’s and then return it to its owner.

  Emilia was finding the evening increasingly stifling; she despised the feigned chivalry and was beginning to feel that she was no one, that her place was the nowhere Simón now inhabited. She ached for Simón. She thought how different her life would have been had he not disappeared. Together they would had fled the bloody ruins that the country had become. As soon as her mother no longer needed her, she would take what little money she had managed to save and leave. She didn’t know where she would go, but she trusted that Simón would guide her. She went over to her father and told him she couldn’t stay a minute longer. ‘I’ve kept my promise,’ she said, ‘I’m leaving.’

  ‘Don’t even think of going out into the street half naked like that,’ Dupuy said.

  ‘There are lots of taxis just outside,’ she said. Before her father could grab her arm, she headed back to look for her cape. It wasn’t where she had left it, but on a chair between two curtains almost at the back of the hall. She slipped it over her shoulders and, relieved, headed outside.

  The king and queen moved from one group to another, gracefully acknowledging the bows and curtsies. The air in the hall was increasingly muggy. The ladies’ dresses were mercifully light, but the gentlemen, all wearing starched shirts and dinner jackets, were dripping with sweat. Even the king appeared to be exhausted. His brow glistened and he had to mop it. The queen gave him a slight, barely perceptible gesture. The king approached the Eel and said: ‘We are extremely grateful, Presidente. Argentina is a magnificent country.’ The Eel applauded and the crowd followed suit. The queen went to look for her cape but could not find it. She called one of her ladies-in-waiting and asked that it be brought to her. The lady-in-waiting went to the cloakroom but returned empty-handed. ‘How strange,’ said the queen, ‘I gave it to one of you.’ ‘I left it over here,’ said a lady-in-waiting. Everyone in the hall joined the search for the missing cape, as rumours and gossip whirled around the room. ‘Someone stole it.’ ‘I didn’t see her wearing a cape.’ ‘Pink, did you say?’ ‘Really? The cape she was wearing when she arrived was black.’ ‘Who knows where she put it.’ ‘If it isn’t found, it will be a terrible embarrassment for the country.’ ‘I’m sure that some subversive has stolen it.’ Within five minutes, the whole room was in uproar. The toilets were checked, the kitchen, the servants, wardrobes; people checked behind curtains and under tablecloths. No one dared to leave. One of the aides-de-camp asked if they might be allowed to check the ladies’ handbags; Dupuy dismissed him with a curt gesture. ‘This is an honest country,’ he said. ‘The people here are respectable people. There are no thieves among us.’ ‘Her Majesty’s pink cape.’ ‘The pink cape!’ The words echoed around the room. The waiters and the ladies-in-waiting ran about like headless chickens but nothing was found. In Argentina, so many things disappeared overnight, so many people inexplicably ceased to exist that it hardly seemed surprising the queen’s cape should suddenly become unreal – one more sinister trick in the sleight of hand that was commonplace in Argentina.

  Eventually it grew late, too late. The queen covered herself with a shawl one of her ladies-in-waiting had been wearing and the guests had no choice but to leave with the king and queen. At 2 a.m., the only people left in the hall were some of the guards, an aide-de-camp and the doormen. They competed with each other, snooping around, interrogating the kitchen staff who were clearing away the platters of canapés. At some point in the early hours, the chief of police arrived with a federal judge who insisted on investigating what was clearly a robbery. This would have been the end of the matter if, shortly before 3 a.m., one of the doormen went up to the judge, clapping his hand to his forehead. ‘A pink cape, you said? I think I saw it. One of the ladies left early wearing a pink cape. Maybe it was her own, I don’t know.’ The man was distressed, pale, he was afraid of losing his job. He described the lady in question, looked at the photographs they showed him of the guests at the gala and finally identified Emilia. ‘That’s her!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’m sure that’s her.’ At 3.30 a.m. the chief of police phoned Dupuy. He apologised profusely for disturbing him at such a late hour and explained that he would be calling at the house on calle Arenales in ten minutes. ‘Is it something serious?’ asked the doctor. ‘I hope not. I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.’

  When Dupuy answered the door to him, Emilia was in bed. The chief explained what had happened and the doctor began to worry. ‘My daughter left the reception before I did,’ he explained, ‘I haven’t seen her. She was certainly wearing a pink cape when we arrived. Maybe it looked like the one the queen was wearing. I never pay any attention to such things. But this matter needs to be cleared up. I’ll go and wake my daughter.’ He burst into Emilia’s room, turned on the lights. He would have shaken her, shouted at her, but he did not want the police to overhear. Emilia sat up i
n bed. Her father’s furious tone completely bewildered her. She wasn’t worried by his anger, she was sure she had done nothing wrong, and she thought it was a bit much for the chief of police to call at their house at 3.30 a.m. to clear up what was probably just a mix-up, a simple mistake. She saw the cape which D had designed for her draped across the chair next to her mother’s bed where she usually read. She saw the black dress lying on the floor. She hadn’t had the energy to hang them up when she got back from the party. She had been exhausted and wasn’t planning ever to wear them again. ‘Look, there’s my cape over there,’ she said to her father. ‘It’s mine.’ ‘Look at it carefully,’ Dupuy commanded. ‘It’s impossible the capes could be exactly the same, that would be too much of a coincidence.’ ‘Give me a minute, Papá, I’m in my nightdress. I’ll get up and look.’ ‘I have no intention of leaving this room,’ said her father. ‘The police are waiting. Get up right now. I’m not interested in your modesty.’ Emilia held the cape up to the light and saw nothing untoward. ‘It’s mine, I’m sure it is,’ she was about to say when she noticed in one of the folds a slender, almost invisible, red cord. The detail made her start, but she remained calm. If it was not her cape, then she would give it back and that would be that. She studied it more carefully. Under the collar was a tiny, exquisitely embroidered escutcheon, the royal Spanish coat of arms with a lion rampant and a three-towered castle in the upper quadrants flanked by the pillars of Hercules and bearing the motto Plus Ultra. The needlework was so delicate that, with a magnifying glass, it was possible to read the words. It was not her cape. She had made a mistake. The suffocating heat, her desperate need to get away. Now she remembered that her cape had not been where she had left it and, without a second thought, she had taken the first cape she had seen. She laughed at her gaffe. She would be happy to see the queen and offer her apologies. She would show her that the two capes were like two peas in a pod and the queen would immediately understand. She was sure the queen would say: ‘I could just as easily have made the same mistake. I’d like to know who your dressmaker is.’ And Emilia would tell her about D. But where was D’s cape? Somewhere in the hall, she supposed, with the lost property. She would explain the situation to her father and he would have it tracked down. She had spent her whole life watching him solve other people’s problems. She brushed back her hair, smoothed her nightdress. ‘Papá,’ she called. Dupuy was still in her room with his back to the bed, his hands on his hips. ‘It looks like they were right. The cape I picked up isn’t mine. There’s a simple explanation – the two capes are almost identical.’

  ‘You dare to say that, as though this were some trivial mistake?’ Nothing now could contain Dupuy’s fury. ‘The police already see this as an act of subversion. It would take very little to trigger a diplomatic incident. Give me your cape too. If they are identical, then we can get out of this mess by showing them both.’

  Emilia stammered an apology. ‘I can’t find mine. I don’t know where I left it. I think I must have picked up the wrong cape as I was leaving.’

  ‘Give me the one you’ve got right now,’ said Dupuy, snatching it from her. ‘I have people waiting who have been up all night because of your blunder. And don’t even think about going back to bed. We need to have a serious talk, I will not have a thief as a daughter.’ He summoned up the self-righteous smile he always used in difficult situations and went out to deal with the police. As he went, he concocted the version of the incident which would be published by the papers. Emilia did not deserve his protection; it was his good name that he needed to save.

  She sat on her bed waiting for him, her hands shaking. Nothing could appease her father when he was angry. Emilia knew that the only sensible thing to do at such times was to say nothing, to retreat into herself like a tortoise and wait for the storm to pass. She and Chela had long since learned that their mother’s anger could be placated with a hug. Her father, on the other hand, did not understand such affection. His feelings, if he had feelings, were like ice and never appeared on his face. On those rare occasions when he touched her, Emilia bristled and felt an irresistible urge to pull away. It was an almost animal instinct which her mind ignored. Dupuy’s reactions were unpredictable and the way he was behaving now terrified her. She pulled her legs up onto the bed, hugged her knees to her chest. Simón, she whispered, Simón.

  She heard footsteps. Heard him opening the drawers of the cupboards and the wardrobes, slamming them shut, moving the tables in the hall. If her mother had been there, she would have rushed to her side to protect her. But they had taken her back to the home on Sunday. She was alone. At any moment, Dupuy would burst into her room and demand an explanation. She would give him one. As soon as he was calm, she would talk to him. She stared at the glimmer of light creeping through the window. It would be dawn soon. If today was like every other day, her father would soon begin his inflexible routine: the bath, the frugal breakfast of coffee, the round of meetings. It was possible he wouldn’t have time to talk and she could go back to bed. She was half dead with exhaustion.

  The double doors of the bedroom opened slowly, Dupuy standing between them, filling the space completely. ‘Make yourself decent this minute,’ he ordered. He gave her no time to take her robe from the hanger but grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to the dressing room which Ethel had used when she was still allowed to make decisions for herself. The walls and the ceiling were covered with mirrors leaving only the parquet floor. It had been one of Ethel’s expensive extravagances; she liked to linger there contemplating the fleeting reflection of her body in the world. As a little girl, Emilia had been afraid that the mirrors would swallow her mother up and the woman who emerged would not be the same, but someone who looked like her. One afternoon, finding the dressing room door ajar, she had steeled herself to sneak in to take a quick look. She saw nothing to justify her fears; dresses hanging from a chrome rail flanked by shelves which held hats, shawls, scarves, gloves, bras, silk stockings, lace panties. And everywhere there were shoes, hundreds of them. As she tiptoed out, she was startled to see her night light come on as though the mirrors were a siren song calling to it.

  After her mother became ill, the room, like many in the house, fell into disuse. Dupuy ordered that the clothes be given to the Sisters of Charity and had the shelves and the rail removed, postponing until later the delicate task of removing the mirrors, replastering and repainting the room. He would have it done while he was away on business, when he wouldn’t be bothered by the comings and goings of builders, the hammering, the paint, the dust.

  That morning, it occurred to him that the room could also be used to punish. Very few people have a phobia of mirrors, but in those who do the effect is magical and immediate: a strange and subtle form of torture. Emilia had struggled like an animal whenever Ethel had asked her to go in. To him, and perhaps to Ethel, it had merely been an amusing game. But their daughter’s terror was genuine. Mirrors gave her nightmares, made her lose control of her body. He was glad he had not had them removed. Now they would be the perfect means by which his daughter could pay for her crime. He knew her all too well. She was a resentful girl who had thought she could keep the queen’s cape as a trophy. This was why she had taken advantage of the crowds to exchange one for the other. She didn’t give a damn about the irreparable damage it would cause her father’s spotless reputation. If she were not a Dupuy, he would have turned her in and let the police do whatever they wanted, but while she still bore his name he could not do so. The mirrors would break her once and for all and, if he was lucky, turn her into a vegetable like her mother.

  Collapsed in a heap next to the dressing room, Emilia no longer struggled. Dupuy pushed her inside, threw a blanket at her and said, as he closed the door: ‘You’re not coming out of there until the other cape is found. And if there is no other cape, you’re never coming out. You’re dead to me. And you can forget about your mother.’

  Though sounds from outside the room were muffled, Emilia thought she heard
him leave. She would not let herself be beaten by her fears. She had already been locked up for a whole night and she had survived. Simón was with her, Simón was her rock. So as not to lose her head, she would keep her mind a blank. No thoughts, no images, like Buddhists. Only the zero that was God. She would die of exhaustion, of fever, of madness, of anything rather than let her father hear her scream or beg or grovel. Her throat felt dry. She would hold out. (The night light was not as bright as her childhood memories of it.) If there was anything of her in the mirrors, she did not see it. She could make out a few blurred images of some other being. In primary school, she had been told to read Through the Looking-Glass where reality was reversed. Alice did not disappear, but she was unreachable; no one could catch her. Ever since, she had had recurring dreams about that strange world. On the last page of Through the Looking-Glass it says that people in a dream can also be dreaming of us and that if those dreamers should wake we would flicker out like a candle. Emilia did not care whether she flickered out if the dream meant having Simón back. It even occurred to her that Simón might be drawing maps of the infinite in which words and symbols were reversed. She was exhausted, her throat burned with thirst. She lay on the floor of the dressing room, leaned her head against one of the mirrors and gradually fell asleep in the secret hope that the glass and quicksilver would melt into a silver cloud just as it did in Through the Looking-Glass and she could leap across the threshold to a place where everything would begin again.

  When she woke, she saw that someone had left a bottle of water in the room while she was asleep, a full teapot, some toast and some cheese. Bringing food all this way and bending down to set them on the floor was not something Dupuy would do. If someone else knew she was locked in here, it was a sign that she would not be left to die. But they were obviously not going to let her out either. The mirrors formed a smooth wall with no cracks, concealing the lines of the door. She felt as though she were in a tomb, sealed up forever. Her eyes were now able to make out the empty space weakly lit by the lamp paradoxically called a night light. Emilia ate and drank only what she needed and put the water that remained to one side. She felt more confident. Seeing herself endlessly reflected in the mirrors had a hypnotic effect. She brushed her face against the smooth, indifferent surface. I can see my whole body, standing, she thought. My face sees the whole body, disappears into the mirror and finds paths there, but what about the rest of my body? Why is there no sense of sight in the mind that thinks, the nose that smells, the vagina that pulses? Was she one being or was she many? If many, how would Simón ever manage to find her? Perhaps he could see her from the other side where reality was inverted and was trying to reach her, unable to recognise her among all the reflected Emilias. She remembered a movie with a scene at a funfair, in a Magic Mirror Maze. A man was trying to kill another man; a woman was trying to kill one of the men or maybe both of them, she wasn’t sure now, but in the mirrors there were lots of men, whole cities of people, lights that multiplied. Emilia thought that with a little patience she could loosen a block of the parquet, take it out and use it to smash the mirrors. She ran her fingers along the floor, feeling for a crack, but it seemed solid. Near the edge, her fingers chanced upon something unexpected. Taking it in the palm of her hand she saw it was one of her mother’s hairpins which had survived being swept up or sucked up by a vacuum cleaner. That something of her had refused to leave was some sort of secret message, a sign that if something persists, endures, it is because it was created to last. She moved closer to the mirror and saw her mother take Simón’s hand, saw her walking with him towards the white nothingness, saw them both reflected in the ceiling mirrors calling to her. She wanted to go with them but she did not know how to get to the other side, how to pass through. Desperately, she pounded on the mirrors begging them not to leave. ‘I’m coming,’ she screamed, ‘I’m coming, tell me how to get to there.’ They went on walking towards the void, not hearing her, until the whiteness of the other side opened its ravenous lips and devoured them. Suddenly, Emilia saw herself transformed into a thousand hateful people, her whole being waging war on itself, this being that had never struggled to enter reality. ‘Wait for me, I’m coming, I’m coming.’